Namesake
by Griselda Banks
Summary: Oneshot. A rose by any other name would smell sweeter.


**Author's Note: This is a little musing about one of my favorite OCs, Maes Mustang, who appears in my fic "Legacy of Loss". I've always thought that Roy Mustang would name his son after his best friend; it makes a lot of sense. But then I started wondering what Maes Mustang had to say about it himself. I mean, obviously his name has a lot of weighty connotations, since his namesake is a dead man. I suppose this fic also reveals again how much store I put by our names having an impact on the way we look at life. This fic is much better enjoyed after reading "Legacy of Loss", but it doesn't really matter too much if you haven't. Oh, and please believe me when I say that I, personally, have nothing against anyone whose name is Herman, Frank, or Bob. That's just Maes talking XD**

I am Colonel Maes Mustang, I am 25 years old, and I hate my name.

Now, Maes isn't exactly a distasteful name. It's not half as bad as, say, Herman or Frank or Bob. Maes is a good, strong name, sort of squarish, good for everyday wear and tear. It's short, so it doesn't need any nicknames, but still has that slightly exotic flair that every underused name does.

No, the problem isn't the name itself.

If you don't know me, you'd probably think I had it good. I am, after all, the only son of the Fuhrer Roy Mustang, and one of the youngest men ever to become a Colonel. My skill with a firearm is seconded only by that of my mother. I have four loyal and capable subordinates and – if I do say so myself – a rather handsome face. What more could a military man want?

Plenty, let me tell you.

I can still remember the very first time I decided that I hate my name. I was five years old, and I and my parents were over at the Hugheses' house, as we often are on a Sunday afternoon. Mr. Hughes was my father's best friend, before he passed away (_passed away,_ what a euphemism! Before he was _brutally murdered,_ I mean!). They were more like brothers than anything else, so it's only natural that his widow has always seemed like an aunt to me, and his daughter a cousin.

At least, that was what I thought before that day. At the time, Elysia Hughes was eleven, and there wasn't any reason for her to play with me or be my friend, really. But the adults were having some kind of private conversation, and Aunt Gracia told Elysia to play with me. Barely five minutes into the building of our toy block castle, she looked straight at me with those big blue eyes of hers, and said coldly, "I hate you."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you're not my dad."

I'll never forget the cold, steely look in her normally warm eyes. It reminded me of the way my mother's eyes get when she's angry, but such a look seemed alien in cheerful Elysia's eyes. I can remember her face so clearly, though the rest of the day is all faded and indistinct, as most memories become over the years. But I'll never, _ever_ forget the way Elysia Hughes looked at me, measuring me up to her father, and quite obviously finding me lacking.

I never told anyone about that day, but I will not hesitate to say it changed my life forever. I suddenly saw the world in a different light. I suddenly understood the tightness around Aunt Gracia's lips the few times she was forced to say my name. I realized why my father's eyes grew soft and sad the first time I wore reading glasses (and I silently cursed myself for picking the square frames, even though they were the ones I liked best). Everything clicked into place. All those sad looks Maes Hughes's old friends would send my way, or that strange expression that I came to realize meant they were reminiscing about another Maes.

I went through a phase of severe depression when I was about ten years old. It seemed that no one cared about me, that they would truly be happier if I was dead and no longer around to remind them all of their dead friend. Sometimes I thought they hated me; other times I thought I hated them. My heart was bound in bitterness and anger, and at the same time I was swamped with guilt for feeling such things about my family and closest friends. I knew I shouldn't think such ugly thoughts, but I couldn't help it. Every time I asked myself whether I hated my father, or my mother, or Aunt Gracia, or Uncle Havoc...I would answer that no, I didn't. Whenever I thought I hated them, in truth I was only using them to take out the anger I felt towards myself. And realizing that only made me hate myself all the more.

I cried a lot, holed myself up in my room, even tried to kill myself once or twice. Somehow, my mother always seemed to realize when these incidents were imminent, and she always seemed to be right there at my side as I tried to sum up the courage to plunge the knife into my heart, to pull the trigger of the gun pressed to my temple. She never wailed or rushed at me frantically; she was just _there,_ one hand firmly holding the weapon out of harm's way, the other resting gently on my shoulder. "I don't think you want to do that," she would say softly.

And she was always right.

The second time she found me trying to end it all, she offered me a way out. "Whenever I'm feeling angry or helpless," she said, "I go practice in the shooting range. It helps me calm down."

I knew this already; I had seen her disappear in that direction a few times after a long day at work, or the occasional sharp argument with Father. This time, she led me there by the hand, showed me the targets, and pressed a pistol into my hand. Looking at me with the no-nonsense glint in her eye, she said, "That weapon is a great responsibility, and a very heavy burden. I give it to you because I know that my son will never use it for murder."

My mother is a very wise woman. Few mothers would be willing to give their ten-year-old son a real weapon, afraid that they might hurt themselves or someone else. But my mother was willing, because she knew herself, she knew my father, and she knew me. While she didn't know the source of my depression, she did know that I was sensible enough to handle a real weapon when given a reason to hold it. She trusted me, and because of that I could never turn that gun back on myself, or on anyone else. The very act of trusting me ensured that she _could_ trust me.

Most people think my precise aim is a matter of genetics, that I inherited the skill from my mother. I don't claim to know anything about heredity, but I can tell you that the majority of my skill came from the frequency of my visits to the shooting range. Often I would pretend the vaguely man-shaped target was myself, or that the bullseye was my name, and I would shoot it down till there was nothing left.

By the time I was fifteen, I already longed to join the military like my parents. I saw that as my way out of the stranglehold of my childhood. In the military, I could prove to everyone that I was more than just a boy carrying the name of a dead man. There, I could be myself. But my parents would have none of it. "Eighteen," my father said sternly. "That's the minimum age, and I'm not bending the rules just for my son." My mother nodded agreement, and I could see there would be no arguing.

So I waited another three years, waited in an agony of adolescent self-pity. On my eighteenth birthday, I signed up with the military and became Private Maes Mustang.

But I discovered that life in the military was not all I had thought it to be. I was shown no favoritism, but my fellow recruits still looked at me askance, for they knew I was the Fuhrer's son. Whenever I was praised for something I did, they would glare at me. At least no one looked at me with those sad, reminiscing eyes anymore.

And so, I discovered that if it wasn't one thing, it was another. Few in the military knew or cared about my namesake, but it was common knowledge that I was the Fuhrer's son. I suppose they thought I would use my status as the Fuhrer's son to worm my way up the ranks. Trying to ignore them, I threw myself into my work, for as long as my eye remained on the target and my fingers squeezed around the trigger, I could forget about my name or the looks cast my way. It was as though I was saying, _Ha! Take that, Maes Hughes!_ with every bang of my gun.

Every promotion was a relief. Though people muttered that I received them because I was the Fuhrer's son, I knew I could stop any mutter with a simple display of my skill. And every promotion I received meant I could leave the mutterers behind.

I first met Anthony Dirk shortly after my promotion to the rank of Major. He was one of my subordinates, and he was such a friendly man that I soon befriended him. Once, as he was telling me about his girlfriend over lunch, he said, "Say! Sir, why don't you have a girlfriend? I bet you could snag quite a few with those looks of yours!"

To be honest, I had never really thought about that before. But it seemed that after Dirk said that to me, I kept on seeing all the pretty military women that I had never noticed before, until they seemed to be everywhere. I reasoned that they _were_ rather pretty, and wouldn't it be nice if one of them were mine, and on and on.

And then, yes, I released my natural charms on them.

If they kept records of this sort of thing, my father would have won the award for dating the most women in Central. And I would have won the award for the most failures. It seemed that whenever I prepared myself to go over and capture a woman's interest, I ended up saying something stupid or making one blunder after another that would ensure my failure. Some stormed away, offended by some slip of my tongue; others smiled and politely refused for one reason or another, and I was left at the age of 22 without ever having been on a date.

That was the year I became close friends with one of my subordinates: Nina Elric, the eldest daughter of the Full Metal Alchemist. One might think that, our fathers being old friends and everything, we would already have an almost-family sort of relationship, like the Hugheses. But the Elrics lived in some tiny village out East, and I had never met any of Mr. Elric's family except for his brother. So it was to my surprise that I discovered Nina and Trisha Elric, Mr. Elric's two daughters, were to be my direct subordinates.

I have made it my business to become friends with all of my subordinates, and at the time Nina was only seventeen years old – practically a little girl. Thus, any sorry attempts at flirting were the furthest things from my mind as the two of us became closer and closer friends. Our friendship was largely due to a rather high-strung adventure I and my subordinates went through shortly after the Elric sisters were put under my command. Friends usually become closer when they go through adventures like that together, and even mere acquaintances can become the best of friends. This was obvious in the days after our adventure drew to a close, as the sisters lay in the hospital recovering from injuries, and – a few days later – from automail surgery.

I visited Nina and Trisha often, just to talk and take their minds off their pain for a while. One day, I was alone with Nina while their mother was giving Trisha a checkup. Somehow, we got onto the subject of names, and suddenly I discovered that we had a closer connection than I had ever imagined.

"My dad gave me my name because of a little girl he and Uncle Al met on their journey," Nina told me. "Nina Tucker. Her father turned her into a chimera, and then she was killed. She was like a little sister to my dad, and he was devastated when she died. He realized how fleeting life is, how we have to treasure the time we're given, and just how precious that time is. So when I was born he named me Nina."

I told her the story behind my name as well, and for a moment we merely looked at each other, sharing an unspoken understanding that I, at least, had never experienced before. "Sometimes, I hate my name," I said, and didn't have to explain why.

She just nodded and said, "Sometimes, I do too." After a moment, she added, "But you know.... It's actually an honor to be named after someone your dad thought of so highly. It's hard sometimes, because people expect things of you that you could never fulfill, but in the end we should be thankful."

Thankful.... It had been so long since I had felt honored to have this name. Had I ever truly been thankful? As I sat there in the hospital ward, in the chair next to Nina's bed, I realized that I have been so arrogant for my entire life. I am always thinking of myself, of _my_ problems, _my_ worries. Whenever someone said my name, I only ever thought about how much I hated the way they looked at me; I never once stopped to consider how _they_ would be feeling. I had never stopped to think how hard it must be for people who used to know Maes Hughes to say my name without thinking of their dead friend. I had never considered the deep connection my father must have had to the other Maes, for him to name his only son after him.

I have always been selfish, but that day I decided to let old wounds heal. After all, my parents would love me even if my name _was_ Herman or Frank or Bob. My friends, all the people I love most.... They don't love me because or despite of my name. They can see me for _me._ To them, I am more than someone bearing the name of a dead man. I have tangible proof of this today in the form of a ring around my finger. How ironic that, after all my abysmal failures at securing a date when I was trying so hard, I was able to secure Nina as my _wife_ with hardly any effort at all.

So, in conclusion, I realize that I must revise my earlier statement. I am Colonel Maes Mustang, I am 25 years old, and I am proud and honored to have my name.


End file.
